The recent uproar over bad social graces such as littering along our common corridors, not picking up our pets’ poop and leaving them behind, not returning our food trays, leaving litter behind for the next patron in the hawker centers and cinemas does make one wonder, what exactly will it take for us to finally break the littering habit? 

Despite years and decades of the Keep Singapore Clean Movement that has been continuously running since 1968, Singapore as a society still falls short when it comes to keeping our community gracious and clean. Instead, we rely on an army of cleaners to pick and clean up after us. This is not sustainable and we as Singaporeans must find it within us as our own civic duty to be kind to our environment and to keep our country clean.

A community grows and prospers when each of us puts in effort to make it clean. We can all be much kinder to each other and the environment. Bin your trash, never litter and always pick up litter that you encounter in your neighborhood. People grow closer and are more motivated to take care of the shared spaces in our environment when we have a common stake in its well-being and future.

Just as how we wish to keep our homes as clean and comfortable as possible, our environment also forms as the natural extension of our home. A clean environment makes us proud to live in it and we are motivated to not only maintain its cleanliness, but to make it more beautiful than it was before. Littering attracts pests which carry germs and diseases that are harmful to our health and well-being. We must prevent this and the first step to do so, would be to spare a kind thought for the environment and not litter.

We can be kind to the environment when we take simple actions such throwing our litter into trash bins, flushing the public toilet after use, keeping the basin clean and floor dry, and by encouraging others not to litter. As we enhance our surroundings by keeping them clean and livable, we create a better environment for ourselves and the wider community. When we are kind to the community and the environment, we contribute to a greater cause beyond our own. 

We create an endearing, truly clean Singapore than we can pride ourselves as our beloved home.